Gail Goodman, distinguished professor of psychology, has been named winner of the American Psychology-Law Society’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology and Law.

Goodman

Goodman, who joined the faculty in 1992, also serves as the director of the university’s Center for Public Policy Research.

The American Psychology-Law Society, a division of the American Psychological Association, comprises some 3,000 scholars, researchers and practitioners in many disciplines working at the intersection of psychology and law.

The award being given to Goodman recognizes theoretical, empirical and applied contributions to the field. The presentation is scheduled as part of the society’s annual convention, to be held this year in San Diego, March 19-21.

Goodman’s research centers on memory development, child maltreatment and children in the legal system. She has consulted with numerous governments and agencies worldwide on policies and research concerning child victims in the legal system, and her research has been cited in U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

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English professor Yiyun Li’s “A Sheltered Woman” is one of 19 works in the running for The (London) Sunday Times’ $45,000 short story award, one of the world’s top literary prizes. The 19 contenders comprise the competition’s “long list,” which will be trimmed to a “short list” of finalists on March 1. Readings are scheduled April 22 and 23, and the winner will be announced April 24.

Li was one of six finalists for the award in 2011, for her story “The Science of Flight.”

Recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, Li has published two short story collections, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl; and two novels, The Vagrants and Kinder Than Solitude.

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Maxine Craig, professor and director of Women and Gender Studies, has been honored by the American Sociological Association for her book Sorry I Don’t Dance: Why Men Refuse to Move.

The 2014 volume won the Best Publication Award from the association’s Section on Sociology of the Body and Embodiment, and an honorable mention from the Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender.

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David Takemoto-Weerts, Bicycle Program coordinator, is a new member of the California Bicycle Advisory Committee. Paul Moore, manager of the California Department of Transportation's Bicycle Facilities Unit, made the appointment.

Takemoto-Weerts holds the only committee seat reserved specifically for a representative of a youth-oriented organization. UC Davis, of course, has plenty of youths — among our 35,000 students — who ride bicycles, not to mention thousands of bike-riding staff and faculty members.

On peak days, 15,000 to 20,000 bike riders are on the campus, where bicycling amenities include bike lanes and paths, repair stations and loads of bike racks — all of which contribute to UC Davis' status as a Bicycle-Friendly University and a Bicycle-Friendly Business, both of the highest degree (platinum), as declared by the League of American Bicyclists.

Takemoto-Weerts said he got hooked on cycling his freshman year at UC Santa Cruz. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in anthropology in 1971 and later did graduate work at UC Davis (while also working as a student mechanic at the Bike Barn). He joined the UC Davis staff on a full-time basis in 1983, starting as Bike Barn manager and subsequently moving to the bookstore before becoming the Bicycle Program coordinator in 1987.

The California Bicycle Advisory Committee also includes representatives of state government and local or regional government agencies, bicycle advocacy organizations (statewide and local or regional) and organizations that do not have bicycle advocacy as a main mission.

The California Department of Transportation established the committee in 1992 to provide guidance to the department on bicycle issues. The committee also reviews matters under consideration by the California Traffic Control Devices Committee.

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Music professors’ world premieres:

• we turn in the night in a circle of fire by Laurie San Martin, who explained the title is a rough translation of a Latin palindrome. The piece, she said, explores changing perceptions — the two violin soloists work together as a team and the larger ensemble as another team. “As with a palindrome, we are constantly reminded of things we have heard before, and are revisiting familiar ideas but with a changed instrumentation and variation. There is a sense that time is altered to accommodate the changing narrative between the soloists and ensemble.”

The premiere is part of a concert set for 7 p.m. this Sunday (Feb. 22) at Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley. The concert is the third of four in the Project TenFourteen series presented by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Cal Performances.

TenFourteen features world premieres commissioned from 10 composers from around the world, along with iconic works from the past century. More information is available here.

• Pablo Ortiz’s Concerto for Bandoneón debuted last month in a concert by the Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center.

Ortiz wrote the piece for one of the world’s top bandoneónistas, J.P. Jofre, who performed the concertinalike instrument — a set of bellows held between the hands — in the orchestra’s presentation of the new work.

The bandoneón is used often in the music of Argentina, Ortiz’s native country. “I grew up listening to tango music, as well as the western classical canon and popular genres, such as rock, jazz and blues. All of these influences are present in my work.

“In writing the concerto, I tried to develop a more abstract contemporary language where the tango influences would not be too obvious.”

Ortiz joined the UC Davis faculty in 1994, and became the first Jan and Beta Popper Professor in Opera in 2012.

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Art exhibitions:

• Darrin Martin, associate professor of art — “Pattern Recognition” at Aggregate Space Gallery in Oakland, Feb. 20-March 21. An opening reception is scheduled from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday (Feb. 20).

The solo show comprises videos, a print-based installation and sculptural components that use technologies ranging from late 19th century stereoscopic photography to analog video processes to three-dimensional scanning and printing.

More information is available here.

• Robin Hill, professor of art — “Salon du Dessin,” a group exhibition of works on paper, at the gallery Lennon, Weinberg Inc., New York City, through Feb. 21. Hill is showing two works from her 2014 series “Thinking About Rain.”

• A number of emeritus and former art department faculty members along with studio art alumni are included in an exhibition at Sacramento’s Elliott Fouts Gallery through March 5.

“An Eclectic Grouping” includes work by former or retired faculty members Roland Petersen, Wayne Thiebaud, Roy DeForest, Robert Arneson and Nathan Oliveira; and alumni Troy Dalton, Rene Martucci and Tony Natsoulas. The exhibition covers several generations with the artists born from the 1920s to the late 1980s.

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The School of Law is 16th in PreLaw magazine’s recent rankings of the “best law schools for diversity,” based on percentages of minority faculty and students in comparison with national averages.

King Hall's showing is particularly impressive in that it is one of the few law schools to perform well in both PreLaw’s diversity index and U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of overall quality. 

Only two law schools — UC Davis and Stanford — appear in both PreLaw’s top 25 and the U.S. News & World Report’s top 40.

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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.

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